SotW (6/18-6/24) Crackdown news, PC RDR2, and the Dutch strikes back

Sorry for being a day late, Sunday is the new day for me to post this, but a little renovation went under way last night, and I never got around to typing this up, so here we go. It's been a busy week for sure, and there is still some things coming out even a week after E3 wrapped up, the first, is the laughing stock that Crackdown 3 has become to most. Now for me, I'm excited to see it actually be pretty good. Or at least, I'm hoping so. But why is it that it's been delayed so damn long? Well buckle up, I have a bit of a scoop on it. So with several interviews at E3 with top people like Phil Spencer and Matt Booty giving us a gleam at what's been happening. So it turns out, Crackdown has been in development for around 5 years, with 4 studios working together. Cloudgine, a once Cloud computing studio, was working on the world/game engine, trying to use the cloud computing to make the map completely destructible. Reagent games, making the assets and art. Finally with Sumo Digital writing up and working on the single player campaign with Ruffian games aiding them. Well, at the beginning of the year, Cloudgine was bought up by Epic games, and Reagent games, owned by the same studio head Dave Jones, let the studio kind of fall to the wayside as Jones took many members to Epic with him when he left. As of E3, Booty has said that the Sumo has been on it's own, with no word on what happened to Ruffian, so the more you hear about it, the more you realize that a lack of real leadership has really hurt this promising project. It's obviously been a mess with 4 studios working on it, so now that it's down to 1, it's going to take some time to make it right. Phil Spencer has gone on the record to say that Microsoft and Xbox are fully committed to the game, and will continue to support it til it's finally in our hands, but by the sounds of it, who knows how much of the game will still be the same? Is anyone out there still excited for Crackdown 3? Do you think it could be a solid, if not great exclusive for Xbox, and why do you feel that way?

News trickled out a few days ago that Rockstar might just be putting together a PC version Red Dead Redemption 2. You read that correctly. Apparently a dev that is currently leaving Rockstar Games posted their resume online, and in it, had many games including RDR2, and with it, saying PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Now the strange thing about it all, is that if this is really true, and not a goof/gaff, than why is Rockstar being so coy? Is it to later use it as ammo as release gets closer? Could PC be the reason for delays being blamed on "Polish"? Maybe they want to sell two copies of the game to more people much like they did with GTAV? Who knows, but if Rockstar speaks up and out, I'll let you know. A little tid bit, Microsoft and Nintendo have been slam dunking on PlayStation, showing off their crossplay, and having trailers showing off people playing on both systems. I think it's hilarious, but obviously, my biggest hope is that Sony will stop being silly and finally come join the fun. Do you think that Sony should join in on crossplay? Or do you think they should just take their ball and go home?

The only sad news, and to be honest, reasonable news, coming out of E3 about Cyberpunk 2077, was the news that there won't be any flying cars. Well, at least none while you're roaming the city. Story missions will have you in them, or when you might fast travel, but as far as driving one around GTAV style, it's just not going to happen. Level Designer Max Pierce says that "You won't be able to control flying cars, but they will be used for missions, for crucial things. The main way to get through will be on foot, car, or bikes." At first I was sad about this news, but shortly after I read this, I found out that the biggest aim and claim that CDPR are saying is that there won't be any loading screens past the initial set up screen. The more I let this marinate, the more it kind of made sense. With no loading screens, there will be a lot of things being dictated, and adding people being dumb in flying cars, is only going to make things really difficult. So for the most part, as that settled in, it made a lot more sense. Also of note, there will be six main areas to explore, with emphasis on the game being vertical, rather that horizontal, like in The Witcher 3. So what do you guys think? Are you said you won't be able to live your most livid Blade Runner dreams? Do you think they may ever add them in?

Finally, one last bit of news, and a bit of a hurrah for myself, it seems the Dutch went forward with their threat about charging Valve 800,000 pounds, or nearly one third of their profits yearly, if they did nothing to their marketplace, essentially forcing Valve's hand, and making them do just that. Valve pulled the plug, for now, on the marketplaces of CS:GO and DOTA2, before getting slammed with a fine. Valve is currently looking into legal ways to combat this, but to be honest, I'm glad the Dutch were able to do this. They took what's been a somewhat scandalous thing, and they didn't hesitate to shut that shit down. We will see if it holds, but to me, this is a small victory for the consumer in my eyes. What do you think, would you like to see this kind of action take place where you live? Or do you not care either way?

As always, let me know down below what you guys think of what's been talked about, and let me know if there was anything I missed that you would like to talk about, til than, I'll see you guys later.